Cape Town offers best value property rates of SA’s cities for 2025_2026
08 April 2025
The City of Cape Town offers the lowest property rates for Commercial, Industrial, and Residential properties, based on an analysis of the 2025/26 draft budgets tabled by each metro.
The rate-in-rand is a statutory formula used by municipalities to calculate property rates. The formula shows how much a person would pay in rates for every rand of their property value.
Based on this formula, Cape Town offers the lowest property rates of all metros for both residents and businesses in 2025/26.
The next metro, Joburg, is 42% higher for commercial and industrial property rates, and 33% higher for residential property rates. Despite significantly lower rates than Joburg, Cape Town will invest 63% more in infrastructure over the next three years (R39,7 bn vs R24,3 bn).
‘Cape Town is building a city of hope for all, where residents actually get the services they pay for in contrast to the decline sadly visible in other cities. We are investing a South African-record R39,7 bn in infrastructure over the next three years for better water and sanitation, roads, electricity services, public transport and more. This will ensure our city is an even better place to live in future as we prepare to cross the five-million mark to become SA’s most populous metro. With this new budget, the City is also making the biggest ever single-year safety investment, with over 700 new municipal police officers to be deployed across the metro, in every ward.
‘We have called this the ‘Invested in Hope’ budget because Cape Town’s unrivalled investments are positioning our city as a beacon of hope in South Africa. We are also proud to be a metro that cares for the vulnerable, with 15 cents in every rand paid by ratepayers going towards free and subsidised basic services to the poor. As Capetonians, we are all invested in a better future for our families and our city, and we thank our ratepayers for their contributions to building a city of hope,’ said Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.
The City has released data showing that for every R1 in property rates, Cape Town residents help to fund:
• Policing, Traffic, Fire and Disaster services (29 cents)
• Infrastructure investment (14 cents)
• Free and subsidised services to the poor (15 cents)
• Customer care, IT and service delivery (15 cents)
• Parks, public spaces, environment and libraries (13 cents)
• MyCiTi public transport (six cents)
• Economic growth, tourism and informal trading programmes (four cents)
• City clinics and health services (four cents)
Besides offering competitive commercial property rates, Cape Town aims to be Africa’s easiest city to do business, with the City launching a new Ease of Doing Business Index to track and improve ten critical indicators for ease of doing business, including building plan approvals, land-use rights, rates clearance certificates, and connections to electricity and water.
R5,2 bn social package for households in need
Cape Town property rates will increase by 7,96% for 2025/26 to help fund the major safety and infrastructure investments, with the metro offering the widest qualifying criteria for rates and indigent relief as at 2024/25, including:
• Highest Free Water allocation (15KL)
• Widest qualifying criteria for 100% rates rebate (R450 000 property value, <R7 500 monthly income)
• Widest qualifying criteria for lifeline electricity (R500 000 property value, <R7 500 monthly income)
• Pensioners: widest rebate and lifeline electricity criteria (<R22 000 monthly income, regardless of property value)
Eskom’s 11,32% increase to municipalities nationally will also be limited to just 2% in Cape Town, made possible by discontinuing the 10% cost of each electricity unit to fund other City services, such as area cleaning. Instead, City-wide cleaning services will be funded by a ring-fenced tariff, the impact of which is buffered by the savings in electricity costs. This reform is aligned with the broader National Treasury-led Trading Service Reform Programme, which has a key objective, within the waste management space, to ensure services are sustainably funded via ring-fenced tariffs, as with other utility services. Cape Town’s progress in this regard puts the metro in line for Treasury’s new performance incentive grant, and a share of the performance-based R54 bn available over six years which can go to further infrastructure investment and enhancements to the service.
Support for households in need is available via the City’s R5,2 bn social package in 2025/26, up from R3,75 billion in 2022/23, with R2,4 bn in rates rebates and R2,8 bn in indigent relief available. Cape Town has the highest proportion of residents benefitting from free basic water and electricity, according to StatsSA’s non-financial census data for municipalities released in March 2024. The City is 10 percentage points ahead of the next metro for free electricity, and 25 percentage points ahead for free water and sanitation. See the full StatsSA research results here.
2025-26 Rate in Rand - Residential
Cape Town – 0,007159
Johannesburg – 0,009545
Tshwane – 0,010117
Mangaung – 0,011068
Ekurhuleni – 0,011520
Ethekwini – 0,014254
Buffalo City – 0,015122
2025-26 Rate in Rand - Commercial
Cape Town – 0,016824
Ekurhuleni – 0,023050
Johannesburg – 0,023862
Tshwane – 0,029300
Ethekwini – 0,036234
Mangaung – 0,037642
Buffalo City – 0,037804
2025-26 Rate in Rand - Industrial
Cape Town – 0,016824
Johannesburg – 0,023862
Ekurhuleni – 0,028810
Tshwane – 0,029300
Mangaung – 0,037642
Buffalo City – 0,037804
Ethekwini – 0,047200
*Nelson Mandela Bay formulas were unavailable at the time of writing. NMB 2023/24 formulas: Residential (0,012073), Commercial (0,024146), Industrial (0,030183).
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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office